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Construction employment fell in nearly half of the nation’s metropolitan areas, including Dallas, for the 12 months ended June 30 as the public sector continued to cut back on new construction and infrastructure investments, according to data released today by the Associated General Contractors of America.

Construction employment rose in 127 of the nation’s 337 metro areas and remained the same in 48.
The Dallas-Plano-Irving metro area was one of 165 metros nationwide — and the only Texas metro area — to lose construction jobs during the 12-month period.

“The construction sector continues to shrink or stagnate in most metro areas as demand for new construction remains weak in too many places,” the association’s chief economist Ken Simonson said in a statement. “It is hard to see how the construction employment picture will improve significantly in the short term until the economy picks up more steam.”

Developer Randy Heady has the only significant speculative office project under construction in North Texas.
He soon may have two.
The developer started his 6-story, 164,000-square-foot building last year in Legacy business park on the east side of the Dallas North Tollway at Headquarters Drive.
The Plano project will be ready for the first tenants at the end of this year.
But demand for office space is so strong in that area that Heady and his partners are eyeing the vacant building site they own just to the north.
“We are going forward with phase two,” Heady said. “It will be 190,000 square feet.”
Last year the West Plano and Frisco office market led North Texas in office activity with about 1 million square feet of net leasing.

The North Texas homebuilding market has been the hardest hit segment of the economy.

During the recession, home starts in the Dallas-Fort Worth area dropped by more than 70 percent.

But finally new home activity – along with the rest of the housing market – is on the rebound.

Home starts in the D-FW area rose 22 percent in the second quarter from the same period last year, Metrostudy Inc. said Thursday.

And sales of new homes were up 15 percent from a year ago, the housing analyst said.

The jump in new home activity in the second quarter is causing Metrostudy analysts to rethink their forecast for the year.

“This is the first time in over five years that we may have to increase our forecast for homebuilding activity,” said David Brown, who heads the firm’s Dallas office. “We expect to see closings continue to increase throughout 2012 given the strong sales during the first half of the year and significant jump in starts during the second quarter.”

Texas employers and their workers endured fewer mass layoffs in 2011 than in any year since 2007, according to figures released today by the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Texas employers announced 650 mass layoffs in 2011 which cost 68,500 workers their jobs, according to the BLS report.
That is down from 722 mass layoffs by Texas employers in 2010 and the peak of 1,064 in 2009. In 2009, mass layoffs took 108,452 jobs and 73,454 in 2010, according to the BLS figures.
“It’s a good sign,” said James Howard, an economist with the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ Dallas Regional Office. “We’ve seen two straight years of rather strong declines and that’s a good thing.”
Mass layoffs only count the largest layoff actions, those of 50 workers or more during a five-week period, and only count the initial unemployment insurance claims of workers cut from those jobs. Counting mass job cuts gives an indication of the volatility of the economy and the hardest-hit industries.
In Texas during 2011, construction took the heaviest blows, losing 15,143 workers through 157 mass layoffs, about 22 percent of all big layoffs in the state for the year.
Restaurants and hotels had the sharpest declines in large layoffs, seeming to confirm indications of rising consumer confidence. Local government had the largest increase in mass layoffs, a likely indication of state funding cutbacks in education and declining revenues for counties and municipalities.
Texas employers altogether added 204,500 non-farm jobs in 2011, according to the Texas Workforce Commission. Some of the strongest employment gains came in professional and business services, which added 51,300 jobs for the year. Another strong addition – 41,200 jobs – came in leisure and hospitality, a group that includes hotels, restaurants and amusement parks. Mining and logging which includes oil and gas extraction, added 40,700 jobs.